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Shakur Stevenson returns to the ring on Saturday to defend his WBC lightweight title against Artem Harutyunyan. The fight at the Prudential Center in Newark, New Jersey (ESPN/ESPN+, 8:30 p.m. ET, with prelims on ESPN+ at 6:10 p.m. ET), will be the main event of a Top Rank Boxing card that includes a junior lightweight title fight between WBC champion O’Shaquie Foster and perennial title contender Robson Conceicao.
Stevenson (21-0, 10 KOs) is a former featherweight and junior lightweight champion. He also won silver at the 2016 Rio de Janeiro Olympics representing the U.S. After winning the WBO junior lightweight title with a 10th-round TKO victory over Jamel Herring in October 2021, Stevenson added the WBC belt with a unanimous-decision win over Oscar Valdez in April 2022. But Stevenson lost the belts on the scales when he couldn’t make weight for a title defense against Conceicao in September 2022. He then moved to the 135-pound division and scored a sixth-round TKO victory over Shuichiro Yoshino in April.
In November 2023, Stevenson defeated Edwin De Los Santos by unanimous decision (116-112, 115-113 and 116-112) to win the then vacant WBC lightweight title in a forgettable fight that broke CompuBox’s 38 year record for fewer punches landed in a 12-round fight. De Los Santos landed just 40 total punches and just 14 power punches. Stevenson didn’t do much better, landing only 65 total punches, 19 power punches.
Regardless, Stevenson is back fighting at home.
“It feels good to be going back home to Newark, where they appreciate a young legend, and to make my first title defense at 135,” Stevenson said after the fight was officially…
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